Christmas Wish
by dwparsnip
Summary: Lisa wishes for Rick to be with her on Christmas Eve, and the hopeless romantic that I am, her wish comes true. Complete fluff...read at own risk.


1) I don't own anything to do with Robotech. Damn it.

2) This is absolutely complete and total fluff. Sorry.

3) It's a Christmas story too.

4) Some of you may recognize some of this, as it was intended for another fic. You know who you are.

5) For those of you looking for an addition to a different story of mine, I am trying…really I am. For those of you who aren't, disregard this note.

6) This has not been run through a beta, so I and I alone am responsible for whatever mistakes you might find. If you don't find any, I'm responsible for that too.

7) Any reviews are welcome, be they good, bad or indifferent. Seriously, is it going to kill you to write a little something?;)

8) Dedicated to all the friends I've made in the last couple of years because of Robotech fanfic writing. You know who you are.

9) Merry Christmas everyone.

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The sound of White's gentle humming of 'Silent Night' filtered in through the opened door and gave Lisa cause to smile. White had been in a festive enough mood for days, but this day had been over the top. Probably because it was Christmas Eve.

Lisa initially had neither the desire nor the inclination to celebrate Christmas. But White's constant cheerful attitude, and Rick's reminder to her that those she remembered at this time would want her to enjoy the spirit of the season, edged her slowly into said spirit. It helped to be around kids too, and Dana and Bowie were two of the cutest kids she had ever known, despite their tendency to get into trouble. They so looked forward to this time of year, and she couldn't help but find their enthusiasm infectious. She felt it even more necessary to get into the mood for the season now that Miriya had fallen ill. Dana deserved a happy time.

Deciding that she had spent enough time pretending to work, Lisa got up from her desk and quietly walked to the door. She covertly edged her head towards the edge of the doorframe and peeked out at Commander Cindy White sitting at her desk, now humming 'Jingle Bells'.

Lisa never bothered to hide her smile as White's longish red hair bounced from side to side with the beat of the tune she was humming. Lisa's smile got even bigger when she realized that White wasn't doing any work either; she was just sitting there moving things around her desk…going through the motions.

When 'Jingle Bells' was finished Lisa moved into the doorway and cleared her throat, only to burst out laughing when White jumped up out her chair and stood at attention. When White realized that nothing was happening, nothing serious that is, she narrowed her hazel eyes at her Admiral and said testily, "Are you done yet?"

White's feeble attempt at being angry with her only made Lisa laugh harder, and a second later her laughter was joined in it's journey through the halls of Fokker Base by the vigorous laughter of her aide.

When both women calmed down, Lisa looked at White. "Let's go home."

"It's about time", said White in fake exasperation. As she slipped her coat around her shoulders she said, "I was wondering how much longer you could sit at your desk trying to look busy."

Lisa giggled as she went into her office and retrieved her coat, gloves and scarf. "Hello pot, my name is kettle."

White laughed heartily at that, and it was one of the things that Lisa liked most about her aide. Besides the fact that the office would fall apart without her, she had a glorious sense of humor and only took Lisa seriously when she had to. It was that sort of thing that made her not want to give White her Christmas present.

A moment later, both women were dressed appropriately for the season and ready to leave. At that moment, both women looked at each other expectantly. White moved first.

She reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a small fist sized box, the gift-wrap a typical collage of festive colors topped with a gold bow. She handed the gift to Lisa and said a heartfelt, "Merry Christmas."

Lisa smiled and gratefully accepted the box. She looked up at White and was about to ask if she should open it when White, who read the question, nodded. Lisa opened the box and smiled when she saw the contents.

Inside the box was a Christmas tree ornament; spherical, it was red with a gold colored knob on the top to which a gold ribbon was attached. It was adorned with gold lettering, and Lisa read the inscription aloud. "To Admiral Hayes…the best boss I could ever ask for." Lisa smiled and she looked up to White. Keeping her emotions in check as well as she could, which wasn't well at all, she managed to say, "Thank you, Cindy."

White nodded as she responded with, "Merry Christmas, Admiral."

Lisa smiled and inspected the orb once more before carefully closing the box and leaned over to place it on top of her briefcase on the floor. While she was at her briefcase she pulled out a standard letter sized envelope and stood up. She smiled at White and passed her the envelope. As White took it, Lisa said, "Merry Christmas, Cindy."

White looked at the envelope in her hand with a mixture of curiosity and disappointment. She remained motionless until Lisa muttered, "Open it already."

White did as she was told and opened the envelope, then took out the single piece of paper that was inside. After placing the envelope on the desk she unfolded the paper and read what was printed on it. It didn't take long for her eyes to open wide in shock.

Lisa took that as her cue. "Merry Christmas, 'Captain' White." Lisa choked back a laugh at White's look of complete shock.

"Admiral…I…but…"

"But nothing, Captain", said Lisa forcefully. "You do so much for me, for this office…trust me when I say that no one ever deserved a promotion more than you do." Lisa held her hand out towards White and added, "Congratulations, Captain."

White automatically reached out at shook Lisa's hand, and when the handshake ended she walked quickly around her desk and grabbed Lisa in a tight bear hug. Lisa laughed softly as she returned the hug. "You're welcome, Cindy."

When White released Lisa moments later, Lisa was touched to see one lonely tear running slowly down White's cheek. "When we come back from the holidays", said Lisa, "we can discuss your reassignment to a post more suitable for your new rank."

Lisa reached down, picked up her briefcase and then looked up to see White regarding her like she had at least ten heads.

"Reassignment?" asked White in disbelief.

Lisa smiled. "Of course, Captain."

"With all due respect, Admiral", said White resolutely, "I don't want to be reassigned. I'm happy right here."

Lisa was touched by White's gesture, and let it show. "Cindy…"

"Admiral", interrupted White, "I belong with you." When Lisa smiled White added with a smirk, "Besides, it would be a shame to have to train another CO when I've finally gotten you straightened away."

Both women smiled and then laughed. "We'll talk about when we get back", said Lisa, and she laughed when White smiled in a way that said there was nothing to talk about. That was yet one more thing she liked about White.

After gathering their belongings, Lisa and White walked to the main entrance of Fokker base together. When they reached the door, Lisa turned to White and said with heartfelt affection, "Have a good Christmas, Cindy."

White smiled and said, "You too, Admiral."

The two women exited the building and Lisa walked towards the car that was waiting for her while White veered off to head for the parking area. Lisa was about to step into her car when White shouted, "And give my best to Captain Hunter."

Lisa waved in response and got into the car, suddenly aware of a strange feeling in the air, like bad weather was coming. Minutes later, Lisa unlocked the door to her house and stepped inside, just in time to avoid getting hit by the first falling snow flake.

Three hours later, a pajama clad Lisa looked up into one of the streetlights through the big living room window. She could barely see the light filter through the snow, it was so thick, and she could only imagine the trouble a pilot would have trying to land a plane in this mess. _"Pea soup has nothing on this"_, she thought scornfully. Just as she finished the thought the winds began to blow harder, and five minutes later the gentle snowfall had been transformed into a blizzard. _"I'm lucky I got home when I did"_, she thought. The thought however brought another. _"He'll never make it home in this mess."_

"_It's never easy, is it?"_, she asked herself. She knew of course that he would rather be there with her than in the cockpit of Skull One. It still amazed her that she could know that…that he would give as much to be there with her as she would give to have him there, and there was nothing that she wouldn't give.

She walked over and sat down in the large chair that faced the window so she could continue to watch the snow blow across the window, and with the glow from the brightly lit Christmas tree illuminating her face she made a wish…

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Rick slowly climbed out of Skull One and stretched for all that he was worth.

He heard a set of familiar footsteps behind him on the cold tarmac and he said as he finished his stretch, "I love flying, Max…but eight straight hours in the cockpit is more than enough."

He heard a slight laugh from his friend and turned to see a small grin on Max's face.

Before Rick could ask, Max said, "Well, we still have two more hours, Boss…if you want to get back to Monument and your darling…"

"Hey Chief!", called out Rick as he turned to the flight crew chief, cutting off Max's thought. "How about putting a rush on refueling our planes? I gotta get home!"

Rick looked back to Max, who was regarding him with a bemused expression on his face. "Don't give me that look, Max." He pointed and accusing finger at Max and added, "Your wife is back there waiting for you too, isn't she?"

The grin faded from Max's face. He too turned to the Chief and shouted, "Come on, Chief! Please!"

The Chief looked over and gave them the thumbs up sign and then started barking at his flight crew, who started scrambling almost immediately.

The two friends looked at each other and shared a truly happy laugh. The patrol hadn't been the most routine one they'd ever had, but it wasn't as bad as most them had been lately. An hour after takeoff from Monument they received a distress call from New Chicago. They were close enough to respond, so they did.

That was seven hours ago. In those seven hours Rick, Max, the rest of the Skull and two other squadrons went toe to toe with a ragtag squad of Zentraedi rebels. Battlepods and power armor, along with some modified RDF weaponry. It wasn't a particularly fierce or bloody battle; in fact there were no losses on the RDF side, though one of the veritechs from the Indigo squadron barely landed in one piece. The fight was just long and draining. Rick felt very tired, and he could see the same fatigue in Max's eyes.

He didn't care how tired he was though, he was getting home to be with Lisa. After all the begging, pleading, cajoling and wishing he had to do to get Lisa a tiny bit interested in Christmas, he was going to make sure of it supposing he had to ingest a pot of coffee through an intravenous.

"Let's go grab a cup of coffee while we're waiting, Boss", said the mind reader. They had become the best of friends, and that was just one example of how well they had come to know and understand each other.

Rick nodded and headed for the pilot's locker area. There was usually a small pot of coffee always on tap in the pilot's locker area, just in case there was a scramble or in case a pilot had a short turnaround time. Sure enough, just like everywhere else, there was a pot of steaming coffee…at least it smelled like coffee…sort of like coffee. Rick and Max poured themselves a cup, took a sip and realized this coffee had something else in common with Monument: the coffee was bad…very bad.

Max took another sip, held it up to look at it and announced seriously, "I give it a seven on the crappy coffee scale." He looked to Rick and said, "How about you, Rick?"

Rick screwed up his nose at the really bitter taste and announced, "I was thinking eight myself." He shook his head and added, "Wow, that's really bad."

Rick turned his attention to Skull One. Thankfully the Chief was good to his word and he and his crew were working on their veritechs.

"Did you want to go to the comm. center to give Miriya a call?"

Max opened his eyes wide and shook his head emphatically. "She said she was sending Dana over to Jean's, going to bed and would cripple anyone who disturbed her. I'm supposed to pick Dana up when I get home."

Max didn't smile as he said it, nor did Rick as he heard it. Both men knew she was serious. A Zentraedi woman with a bad cold during Christmas was not something to be trifled with.

"Poor Max…no joy after a hard day at work", joked Rick.

Max raised his arms and put his hands on the back of his neck and adopted an air of confidence that wasn't false. "Poor Rick", he said with a sympathetic tone, "don't you know that I don't need to have a hard day at work to have joy."

Rick slowly turned his head towards Max. Max slowly turned his head towards Rick, and when their eyes met, the tarmac was once again filled with their hearty laughter.

After they settled down, Max asked, "What about you, Boss? Are you going to call Lisa?"

Rick smiled a grim smile. "She's in meetings all day. If I interrupt her now that will be that much more time that she'll have to make up later." He shook his head and added, "Besides, I'll be able to see her soon enough."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but that may not be possible", came a new voice.

Both men turned to see the commander of the New Chicago RDF base, General Dan Turner regarding them with a frown upon his face.

Rick and Max came to attention and saluted, which was returned immediately by the General.

"At ease you two." Turner took a step towards them and offered his hand to Rick, and then to Max. "It's an honor to meet you both."

"Thank you, sir", said Rick uncomfortably. He never had been good at accepting compliments. "May not be possible, sir?"

"A severe weather system has stalled over Monument. Lots of snow and they're expecting the wind to pick up soon. It's going to be nasty. All air and ground traffic heading to Monument has been halted. I'm sorry, gentlemen."

Rick stepped towards the General. "Sir, I have got to get back to Monument. It is…imperative, sir."

"So do I, General", chimed in Max.

"Gentlemen, I know it's Christmas Eve but I'm not going to send you out into a severe winter storm..."

"You don't understand, sir", Rick interrupted quietly, shaking his head softly with his eyes lowered to the ground. He looked up and found Turner's eyes. "Lisa, er…that is Admiral Hayes, has been through a lot, sir. She's so looking forward to Christmas this year, and she deserves it so much. I'm willing to take the risk. You have to let me try, sir." Rick took a step towards the General. "Please."

"And my wife is very ill, sir", added Max as he moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Rick. "I don't know if you know any Zentraedi women, but they aren't nice when they're sick. And being sick over Christmas makes it worse. I really need to get back for our daughter, sir."

The General smiled. "Look guys, if I thought you had a snowball's chance in hell, no pun intended, of getting there before it gets really bad I wouldn't hesitate. But your planes…"

"Are good to go, sir", interrupted the Chief. He gave a casual salute to the General, which looked to Rick like some sort of inside joke according to the smile on Turner's face. "Captain Hunter's and Commander Sterling's veritechs have been serviced and are ready to go. The rest of the Skull may take a while though…it seems that the Captain and Commander were the only two not to take any serious damage."

"If we leave right now, General…", began Max, but Turner held up his hand to stop him and Max fell silent.

"General Turner", said Rick in a determined tone of voice. When the General looked at him, Rick forced all of his strength into one last push. "Sir, I have disappointed and hurt Lisa far too much in the last few years not to at least make the attempt. More than that, I have already faced more terrible things than Mother Nature when it comes to being with her or saving her." Rick pressed his lips into a resolute thin line. "Sir, you have absolutely no idea of the lengths I am prepared to go through to be with the woman I love, let alone at this time of year."

Rick looked at Turner, and before his very eyes something seemed to click in the eyes of the superior officer. _"Understanding maybe?"_, thought Rick.

"I know some of what you've done, Captain…it's part of the reason that it is an honor to meet you." Turner sighed and regarded both men seriously. "You do understand the risks, Captain? Commander?"

Rick and Max nodded solemnly. They did understand the risks to flying headlong into a blizzard, but being the true friends that they were, both felt exactly the same way about their chances of making it home to the special women waiting for them: totally confident.

Nothing would stop them. Nothing could.

"What about your squadron, Captain?"

Rick didn't hesitate. "Well sir, it looks like they will be your guest for the night…with your permission, sir. Lieutenant Taylor can bring them home tomorrow when the storm breaks."

"If it were anyone else…", mumbled Turner. He looked at Rick and Max. "Very well, Captain", he agreed resignedly. He shook Rick's hand, and as he reached for Max's hand he added, "But for the love of God be careful…they'll have my stars if we lose either of you to a blizzard, and please give my regards to Admiral Hayes."

"Don't worry, sir. Nothing is going to stop me from being with her. Thank you, General."

Turner smiled and saluted Rick and Max. "Merry Christmas, gentlemen."

Rick and Max returned the salute and replied simultaneously with, "Merry Christmas, sir."

With that Rick ran over to tell Taylor their plans, and a few moments later Rick and Max were airborne and streaking towards Monument as fast as their afterburners could take them.

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"Thank you, Commander", said Lisa into the communications headset. She gently replaced the headset onto the rest of the communication unit, though she really wanted to slam it down with all her might just to vent some frustration.

She had called the Monument base to see if they had heard anything about the Skull squadron. She ended up talking to the watch commander, who said that everything had been shut down, and all air traffic had been diverted away from Monument. Skull One's last message was that the aircraft was being put into the New Chicago base for repair and service.

The only good news was that Rick was fine. As was Max and the rest of the squadron.

She looked out the window again.

"_The snow has to be hip deep!"_, she thought in disbelief. She couldn't remember the last time it had snowed so much.

She sat back down in the chair and waited for the snow to stop, and for her love to come home.

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'Well…this sucks', came Max's morbidly amused voice over the tac net. Rick would have smiled if Max's statement hadn't been so deadly accurate and he hadn't been concentrating so hard on keeping his ass in the air.

Both veritechs were being pummeled and buffeted by winds that were almost unnatural, and for a moment Rick wondered if Mother Nature were trying to get revenge for his comment back at the base. Both men had iron grips on the throttles and sticks, knowing that an unsuspecting gust could jolt them and send them into a spin or dive at any time. They had even broken their usual cruising formation and moved farther away from each other…just in case.

"Alright Max. Let's take it slow and steady. According to my screens, the base looks like it's getting pounded, but there seems to be a little lull in the storm over the residential areas." Rick looked out the canopy towards where the base was supposed to be and saw…well, nothing.

When Max's voice came back over the net it had a mischievous and confident tinge in it. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Boss?'

This time Rick did smile. He was sure that they were both thinking the same thing. He just wondered how Lisa and Miriya would feel about having veritechs in their back gardens…

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Lisa was just starting to fall into a slumber, so she wasn't sure if she actually heard what she thought she heard, or if she was dreaming. She opened her eyes just enough to see that the wind was blowing even harder than it had been earlier, and the snow was snowing at least as thick as before, if not more.

"_Had to be a dream"_, she thought tiredly.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift back to sleep when she heard another noise. It sounded like…_"A veritech?"_

She forced herself to wake up, and as she sat up she was positive she heard the distinctive sound of a veritech landing nearby. She looked to the front window again to confirm that a blizzard was still raging outside. It was.

"_What is going on?"_, she asked herself.

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Rick sat in the cockpit, his hand still on the stick even though the Guardian configured veritech was safe and sound on the ground and he had shut down the engines. It had been the scariest landing of his life rivaled only by his trek into the mouth of the Grand Canon that fateful day to save Lisa.

'Rick?' came Max's relieved voice through the speaker in his helmet.

"Yeah, Max. You okay over there?" Rick looked towards where Max's house should have been only across the street, but all he could see was snow, snow and way too much snow.

'Roger, Boss. I'm down, and in one piece.' There was a slight chuckle. 'I had my doubts for a second though. How about you?'

"The same", replied Rick, then he peeked out the left and then the right sides of the canopy. "Though I think I may have crushed my garbage can." He heard Max's laugh and looked to his house. "I'm not that far away from the house but I can't even tell if there are any lights on or not."

'Me either', said Max. There was a pause when neither man said anything, then Max spoke again. 'You realize we're just stalling so we don't have to go out into the snow?'

Rick sighed. "All right, Max. Give Miriya and Dana a hug for me and wish them a Merry Christmas."

"Will do, Rick. You do the same to Lisa for me. And Rick…'

"Yeah Max."

'Merry Christmas, Rick.'

Rick smiled. "Same to you, old friend. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

'Roger that. Skull Two out.'

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Lisa was still staring out the front window when a dark figure ran in front of the window towards the door, nearly giving Lisa a heart attack. A moment later the door opened and her spontaneous Christmas wish came true when she saw that Rick was home.

Lisa stayed rooted to her spot as Rick shook himself off and finally, their eyes met.

Rick walked slowly to her and took her into a gentle embrace. After a moment he leaned back and said softly, "That was from Max, and he wishes you a Merry Christmas." He waited a moment and then added, "This is from me."

He pulled Lisa as close to him as he could and kissed her passionately. When they broke the kiss a minute later Lisa hugged Rick to her and whispered, "Wishes can come true."

Perplexed, Rick leaned back to look at her. "What?"

Lisa smiled and gently shook her head. "Nothing. Merry Christmas, Rick."

He smiled back at her. "Merry Christmas, Lisa."


End file.
